Working at an immensely steady clip in the last few years, Zhang Yimou is setting his sights on the first sequel amongst his vast career. Following the impressive worldwide box office of over $180 million for his spy thriller Cliff Walkers, a follow-up has now been announced by Hong Kong’s Emperor Motion Pictures (via Screen Daily), with the director set to return. While there are no plot details nor production timeline yet for Cliff Walkers 2, the original was set just prior to WWII and followed four Chinese Communist Party agents who infiltrate the Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo to extract a prisoner.
Jared Mobarak said in our review of the first film, “Zhang Yimou and co-writer Yongxian Quan’s Cliff Walkers wastes no time in delivering the first of its spy genre twists to ensure we’re always questioning the actions on-screen thanks to the kind of traitor you can’t avoid: those who simply wish to live. Call Xie Zirong (Lei Jiayin) a coward if you’d like, but that’s the choice he makes with a gun held to his head. And it only takes his treachery to render Operation Utrennya dead on arrival. Suddenly Section Chair Gao (Ni Dahong) (a Japanese ally) and right-hand man Zhou (Yu Hewei) have a leg up on this communist quartet. They can send their own spies to pretend to be their contacts with the right codes to make it seem legit. Victory is all but assured.”
See the trailer for Cliff Walkers below and for more from the director, the trailer for his new feature Sharpshooter recently arrived.